Science: Moscow's Postcards from Venus

The pictures were somewhat fuzzy and the hues none too bright. But no
one was complaining. The images presented remarkable, virtually
unprecedented views of the nearest thing to an extraterrestrial
hothouse: the scorching surface of Venus, where temperatures hover
around 900° F, and atmospheric pressures are 90 times as heavy as those
on earth.

The photographers were Venera (for Venus) 13 and 14, the latest in a
series of Soviet robot envoys to the earth's nearest planetary
neighbor. Venera 13 lasted two hours and seven minutes on the Venusian
griddle, while its...